


You Are Dave Strider

by herekittie



Series: (We don't get our) Happily Ever After [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Depression, Doomed Timelines, Gen, Post-Sburb, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-19
Updated: 2014-10-19
Packaged: 2018-02-21 01:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2449610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herekittie/pseuds/herekittie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is DAVE STRIDER and you are living for you.</p><p> </p><p>In which Dave hates time travel, thinks a lot about Dead Daves and decides to keep on living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Dave Strider

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [After Effects](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2096835) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



Your name is DAVE STRIDER and you are living for you.

Well, not you as in the you now, but the yous who never became present you. Daves who made different choices, however small, that branched off into doomed timelines and died. Daves that never god tiered, Daves that died trying to save their timeline, Daves that forgot to complete a loop.

This is why you hate time travel. Dead Daves pile up fast enough without your meddling, with your jumping back and forth and talking to past and future selves and doing things future you did to make sure you all survive. It is way too much work.

Paradox space is harsh like that. Nothing gained without lots and lots and lots of pain and work and pain.

Sometimes you lay on your bed and wonder what would happen if things were different. If you chose to do things differently. You would turn your timeline into a doomed timeline and you and everyone will die, bringing the useless timeline to an end, just like paradox space wanted. 

Then maybe another Dave can lay on his bed and wonder about the what-ifs, the what-could-have-been and he can shoulder the burden of living atop a mountain of his own corpses, slayed by his own hands with his blood on his blade. He can live for the Daves who didn't get to live, who fought and screamed and prayed but didn't reach the End and get their Happily Ever After.

But that’s dodging responsibilities and besides, no more time travel. A Dave is still going to have to live for all the others, and since fate has decided that Dave would be you, why push it on some other innocent Dave?

You take a deep breath, hold it in, then let it out, imagining your breath to be the ghosts of Daves being freed from their obligations and circular paradoxes and the messed-up shell of their Alpha self.

Living is a pain, and sometimes you want to be free like the other Daves, but you can’t because you are not living just for yourself, you are living for them too.


End file.
